A Series of Unfortunate Events in Current Events

I had an annoying ongoing joke today. I found a pink slip and told everybody that it was an omen that the universe was telling me that I am getting fired. It was just a list that a customer tossed which happened to be on pink paper. Then the joke was on me when I was called to the meeting room by the store manager. I didn’t get fired, I’ll start right there.

When I called the aware line regarding the managers tossing out my workplace hazard reports I wasn’t sure what to expect. I did expect this much. Everybody outside of the room, that knew about my situation went into a little frenzy and was on edge while I was in that meeting. Especially the ASM Tony who triggered all of it. Linda witnessed the shock bleed the red from Mel’s face when she heard that I was in a meeting with the Store Manager and our HR rep. She is usually in the loop. It was Tony that approached her, he was flustered.

It was all a series of unfortunate events. There was a lot of takeaway from both ends, especially regarding my training. I was just thrown into the safety committee and was never told what any of the protocols were or what my responsibilities were either. Being on that team or not, I would have been doing what I am doing anyway. Regarding my side quest to get everything up to safety standards. This is what happened:

In response to associates dying in the store (other locations) from freak accidents, I took initiative in looking into the integrity of all of the shelves and storage of products. I discovered a few dozen beams that did not have any safety bolts. A reach truck could bump them and the whole shelf could collapse. It took a week to complete that inspection before I wrote them down on a workplace hazard report. I brought it to our new ASM, who transferred from a different store, and then he dismissed it. He wouldn’t look at it or touch it. Told me to put it in Lucy’s bin. Lucy is the store manager. That was on December 1st, 2021. I also did notice that those beams were randomly secured again a few weeks later.

Come January, at our safety meeting it was asked if there were any reports submitted. Lucy said no. Then twice during the meeting, the reports were brought up. Tony said that I didn’t put his name as the person who received the report. A) What report? Nothing was submitted in December, right? B) You didn’t physically receive the report, to begin with, otherwise, you would have caught that then. Then later, Varian mentioned that he sent out an e-mail to every department supervisor to check for missing bolts. How did they know about insecure beams without my report? I brought this all up to my supervisor when she returned from her hiatus and she never followed up with me about anything. No apologies, no explanations. Nothing. So I called the aware line. It looked like a group effort to hide the report. I was left assuming that they didn’t want a paper trail. With no recourse, I called the aware line to report unethical behaviour from the management team at my store.

The series of unfortunate events is that I was not aware of any of the filing protocols and the bin I put it in was not correct. She did receive them though. However, she said no at the meeting because while she was put on the spot and looking through her binder there was none present. That was because Tony had them in the room with us. She and the HR rep zoom called the meeting from different rooms because the world is playing pandemic. Tony had them because he was supposed to show us all how I filed them incorrectly. He mentioned it but didn’t show us.

This next part is when Lucy was getting goosebumps. It was a huge coincidence that I submitted a report regarding the beams missing safety bolts and just a week later, at a different location, a reach truck bumped a beam and the shelf collapsed. Luckily, it fell into another one and nobody got hurt. So the action to correct the integrity of the beams was taken because of that event and not because of my report. That coincidence is what gave Lucy chills.

My boss is going to get a little talking to regarding her never following up with… anything. Tony is going to get a big talking to about being dismissive when he was handed a report. I explained to Lucy and Candace, our HR, the attitude I tend to get whenever I report hazards. I explained every single incident of when it happened. We then discussed a few other things regarding it all but it was all just a long series of unfortunate events that made it look nefarious. They absolutely saw how this all looked from my side. They had me sign a non-disclosure agreement and they signed a non-retaliation agreement and they assured me that Tony and my boss will be signing a non-retaliation agreement as well. I also got a thank you because my store manager was not aware that I was doing all of this work to bring things up to safety standards on my own initiative. She claims to be glad to have me on her safety committee because I am not afraid.

I suspect that I will get an award situation just for taking the initiative. My next one comes with a cash tip. We shall see how everything else goes. Also, I had to explain what gaslighting was to my store manager and HR rep. I had to do the same thing with the aware line rep. Then to everybody on my team that was in the know. Apparently, it isn’t a common term.